Method for indicating the context of a call to a called party

ABSTRACT

In embodiments of the disclosed technology, a plurality of ratings of websites is received, wherein each rating is associated with a category and a rater and each rater is associated with at least one group. A selection of a category is received from the user, wherein the user is associated with at least one group. One website location (or a plurality of website locations) is provided in the category to the user based on at least one rating of the plurality of ratings provided by at least one of the raters, wherein at least one group associated with the rater and at least one the group associated with the user are the same group.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/333,729 filed Dec. 12, 2008 which is incorporated herein by referencein its entirety.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The disclosed technology relates generally to online social networksand, more particularly, to methods of using information from socialnetworks with a phone call.

BACKGROUND OF THE DISCLOSURE

Online social networks allow people to create profiles with data aboutthemselves or relevant to themselves and share content with theirfriends or others connected to them. Such networks, in some form, dateback to the 1970s and 1980s, while other new online social networks,whether they be mailing lists or entire platforms for exchangingcontent, are constantly being developed. Popular networks includeFacebook, Linkedln, MySpace, and MeetUp.com. Older networks typicallyconsisted of mailing lists and the like, such as Yahoo Groups, InternetNewsgroups, Fidonet, and so forth. Sometimes, the fact that a person isa member of such a service indicates the group (i.e., a person whosubscribes to the “New Jersey Lawyers Mailing List”) is a member of agroup of New Jersey lawyers. Alternately, a group can be indicatedwithin the social network platform (i.e., a member of Linkedln mightjoin an “Animal Lovers” group and be listed amongst others who aremembers).

These groups are an improvement over e-mail by itself, becausecommunication is, or can be, provided in the context of the group withwhich one is associated. An e-mail from someone on a mailing listtypically indicates the name of the mailing list in the subject line. Amessage from a user on a social network typically displays, or candisplay, the name of a group in which both parties are members. Thesegroup designations are limited to their usages on the online socialnetworks,

In a different technology realm—the telephone—the device predates theonline social networks. However, the telephone lacks the ability todesignate a group. While ANI and CallerID (Caller Identification)protocols are known, such protocols only deliver to a called party aphone number, and sometimes a name, of a calling party. The called partywill not know in what context the call is being made.

Prior art patents have attempted to bridge this gap. For example, U.S.Pat. No. 6,310,944 to Brisebois et al. discloses the generation ofcontext information in phone calls, such location data, which may begiven to a called party. U.S. Pat. No. 6,768,792 to Brown et al.discloses passing on data to the called party such as location,scheduling information, path of the call, billing information, and thelike. U.S. Pat. No. 6,005,870 to Leung et al. discloses prompting thecalling party to enter more information to be passed on to the calledparty. However, these inventions, while providing some context to thecall, are often limited to general information (i.e., caller location)and cannot provide data indicating a specific relationship or jointgroup identity between the calling party and called party.

An object of the disclosed technology is to allow a user receiving acall to receive data indicating context of the call by exhibiting to thecalled party a group to which both the calling party and called partybelong.

It is a further an object of the disclosed technology to send to thecalling party group data gleaned from online social networks.

An embodiment of the disclosed technology includes indicating thecontext of a communication from a calling party to a called party. Anonline social network profile of each party is linked to a phone numberassociated with each respective party. At least one group associatedwith each profile is determined, and at least a name of the group issent to the called party upon the calling party placing a call to thecalled party.

In an embodiment of the disclosed technology, a device is configured toindicate the context of a communication from a calling party to a calledparty. A data communication pathway exists between an online socialnetwork profile of each party and a phone system. An association devicedetermines at least one group associated with each profile. Acommunication device sends (which may include initiating the sending of)at least a name of the group to the called party upon the calling partyplacing a call to the called party.

The device may further have a calling device for initiating and sendingover a network, communication between the calling party and the calledparty. The communication may be over a phone network. The sending maycomprise sending of CallerID information and/or sending an instantmessage.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a high level flowchart of devices and methods ofembodiments of the disclosed technology.

FIG. 2 shows a high level flow chart of a method of carrying out anembodiment of the disclosed technology from the perspective of a server.

FIG. 3 shows data which may be retrieved from an online social networkin an embodiment of the disclosed technology.

FIG. 4 shows a device on which embodiments of the disclosed technologymay be carried out.

FIG. 5 shows a high-level block diagram of a computer that may be usedto carry out the disclosed technology.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Embodiments of the disclosed technology allow a user who is receiving acall to receive data indicating context of the call by exhibiting to thecalled party an online social network group to which both the callingparty and called party belong. The context of a communication from acalling party to a called party is determined based on the groupassociations in the online social network of the parties, such as theirprofiles, and each party is linked to a phone number associated witheach respective party. When the call is made, the group association ofboth parties is sent with the call, such as with the CallerIDinformation.

FIG. 1 shows a high level flowchart involving embodiments of thedisclosed technology. Calling Party 110 is a person, or deviceassociated with a specific person, legal entity, device, or the like,which is associated with a specific phone number. Via data pathway 112,the calling party 110 queries an online social network database 130 witha phone number of the calling party 110 and a phone number of the partyto be called, herein referred to as the called party 120. The OnlineSocial Network Database 130 responds via data pathway 114 with the nameof at least one group association of which both the calling party 110and called party 120 are members.

Alternatively, the calling party 110, or a device associated with thecalling party 110, such as a device of a service provider of the callingparty, may already be populated with data, such as an online socialnetwork profile name of the calling party 110, and may query thedatabase 130 for a group association of the called party 120, which alsoexists within the profile of the calling party 110.

Data pathway 112 and data pathway 114 may be the same data pathway ormay be two separate pathways. The data pathways 112 and 114 may beanyone of, for example, a data link between a phone service provider andan Internet (packet switched) network connection, an internal networkconnection between two devices, or within the same device as a phoneservice provider (such as when data is cached locally), a connectionbetween a device operated by the calling party 110 and an

Internet connection, and so forth. Data pathway 114, though shownreturning to the calling party 110, may, in fact, go directly to calledparty 120, for example, in that an instant message with at least groupdata is sent to the calling party. An instant message is a message whichis designed to, or does, appear to or notify the recipient upon receiptby the recipient. This may take the form of a text message such as SMS(simple message syndication) or message sent over a service such as AIM,ICO, or the like.

In an embodiment of the disclosed technology, no further actions arecarried out. The recipient is simply notified of an attempt or desire onthe part of the calling party 110 to place a call to the called party120. The notification includes sending at least a name of a group to thecalled party upon the calling party placing a call (which includes anyaction, such as dialing the phone digits, selecting the user from alist, or clicking on a button to the call party) to the called party.

Referring still to FIG. 1, in another embodiment of the disclosedtechnology, a call is placed over a phone network 116 from the callingparty 110 to the called party 120. Along with, or separate from thephone call, data is sent, such as within the CallerID (CallerIdentification) protocol. The data includes at least a group name. Thephone network 116 may be a POTS (plain old telephone service) system, aVoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) system, a combination of POTS andVoIP, or any other phone system configured to allow at least two partiesto communicate aurally.

In the example shown in FIG. 1, the Online Social Network Database 130comprises many entries 132. When queried with a phone number associatedwith a calling party 110, namely, “555-1212,” it is determined that thisnumber is associated with a profile of calling party 110.(Alternatively, and as partially described above, such a database may bequeried with any identifier linking the calling party to his profile orentry within the online social network.) The database 130 is furtherqueried with the number to be dialed, namely, 555-2121. In embodimentsof the disclosed technology, the number is first converted into adesired format. For example, if a person dials a number,“011-972-2-555-2121,” it may be desired to query the database with“02-555-2121” as, depending on where one is dialing from, the digitsdialed are differently. Thus, in embodiments of the disclosedtechnology, even multiple queries may take place to determine either orboth the profile of the calling party or called party, due to changes inthe way a phone number is represented in different places or ondifferent social network platforms.

Upon a successful query, the numbers lead to profiles. Here, 555-1212will return a profile of calling party 110 and 555-2121 will return aprofile of called party 120. Then, an intersection of groups of whichthe parties (i.e., their profiles) are members is queried. In this case,both calling party 110 and calling party 120 belong to group 150. Thus,at least the name of group 150 is returned as an answer to the query. Itis this datum which is passed via data pathway 114 and/or 116 to thecalled party 120. Then, on a device such as a CallerID device 122 or anyother electronic or aural means for exhibiting the data, the name ofgroup 150 is exhibited to the called party.

FIG. 3 shows data which may be retrieved from an online social networkin an embodiment of the disclosed technology. The online social networkdatabase 130 (also shown in FIG. 1) is generally known in the art invarious embodiments. As referenced in the “Background,” common onlinesocial networks known in the art at the time of this writing includeFacebook, Linkedln, Meetup.com, e-mail mailing lists (such as YahooGroups or Mailman, the GNU Mailing List Manager), and so forth.Substantially any electronic method or device of connecting a pluralityof users based on a common interest or common topic may be used inembodiments of the disclosed technology. Such a method or device needonly have the ability to be queried with a phone number, username, orother identification of a calling party and return a group name and aphone number of a called party. In the case where the social network isa mailing list, the name of the mailing list may be the group name, anda script may be used to search for a phone number of a called partywithin messages sent to the mailing list, to determine that both thecalling party and called party are members of such a group. The callingparty may, before a phone call, initiate a search of such messages, inorder to preconfigure phones numbers of those in the group.

Referring again to FIG. 3, profile 310 comprises data associated withcalling party 110, and profile 320 comprises data associated with calledparty 320. These data may be stored in a database as is known in the art(such as MySQL, Oracle, MS Access, etc.) and/or may be garnered frome-mails or messages sent by users to a specific group. In the lattercase, the group memberships 360, 362, 364, and/or 366 are populated withthe name of the group from which the information was garnered. Profile310 may comprise a username 330, real name 340, phone number 350, groupmemberships 360, 362, and 364, and a picture 370. Profile 320 maycomprise a username 332, real name 342, phone number 352, groupmemberships 362 and 366, and picture 372.

Typically, a user of an online social network will have access to atleast some profile data and/or messages sent by other users who are partof the same social group. Where access to at least a phone number of acalled party is provided to a calling party (including a deviceassociated with or put in action as a direct result of a phone callplaced or attempted to be placed by a calling party), the calling partyreceives a response back from such a query of at least a phone number ofthe called party and can determine that the called party is in the samegroup. In the example shown in FIG. 3, calling party 110 has a profile310, and called party 120 has a profile 320, which are both associatedwith group 362. Thus, when placing a call from calling party 110 tocalled party 120, the group membership 366 is sent to the called party.The sending may be or is initiated via CallerID or instant message, asdescribed above.

FIG. 2 shows a high level flow chart of a method of carrying out anembodiment of the disclosed technology from the perspective of a server.In step 210, a server, such as a web server and/or a provider of a phoneservice, receives an indication of a party to call from a calling party,such as by receiving the digits to be dialed. This may occur by way of acalling party dialing digits into his/her cellular phone, POTS phone,VoIP phone, or a “soft” phone (i.e., a computer implemented method ofdialing a phone number). In step 220, data are received from a socialnetwork profile associated with the calling party, such as the datashown in FIG. 3. In step 230, data are retrieved from a social networkprofile of the called party. The data retrieved may be sent to a devicecarrying out embodiments of the disclosed technology, or may beretrieved by the social network database for purposes of providing agroup name to the server in which both the calling party and calledparty are members. This is accomplished in step 240, wherein theintersection of the memberships of the calling party and called partyare found and returned in a query. After the query information has beenreturned, or concurrently with the query, in step 250 a call is placedfrom the calling party to the called party, and in step 260 the groupassociation of the parties which was deduced in step 240, or at least aportion thereof, is sent to at least the called party. In this manner,the called party may be notified of the context of the calling party'sphone call to the called party.

FIG. 4 shows a device on which embodiments of the disclosed technologymay be carried out. Calling party 410 represents a handset or othercalling device used to initiate voice communications (analog or digital)with another. Called party 420 represents a handset or other callingdevice used to receive voice communications (analog or digital) fromanother. A phone switch 430, situated on a network at a location betweencalling party 410 and called party 420 guides the call from the callingparty 410 to the called party 420. The phone switch may be at a locationof, or integrated with, the calling party 410 device, or may be at alocation of a phone service provider. Before or while making the call,the phone switch 420, having Internet connectivity) or being pre-loadedwith group information data - not shown), sends data over a packetswitched network, such as the Internet 440, to an online social network450. A server 460 of the online social network receives the requestwhich comprises information about the calling party 410 and called party420 (such as their phone numbers or other information as described abovewith reference to anyone of FIGS. 1-3). The server 460, which may be, oris integrated with, a unitary device with the online social networkdatabase 470, queries the online social network database for furtherinformation with regard to the profiles of the parties. This result ofthe query may be the name of a group to which both parties belong. Suchresulting data may then be sent back over the Internet 440 to the phoneswitch 430, which passes the group information along to the called party420, such as in the form of CallerID information or an instant message,as described above. A called party 420 device then exhibits the groupinformation to the called party, informing the called party of a contextof the call.

FIG. 5 shows a high-level block diagram of a computer that may be usedin practicing the disclosed technology. Computer 500 contains aprocessor 504 that controls the overall operation of the computer byexecuting computer program instructions which define such operation. Thecomputer program instructions may be stored in a storage device 608(e.g., magnetic disk, database) and loaded into memory 512 whenexecution of the computer program instructions is desired. Thus, thecomputer operation will be defined by computer program instructionsstored in memory 512 and/or storage 508, and the computer will becontrolled by processor 504 executing the computer program instructions.Computer 500 also includes one or a plurality of input networkinterfaces for communicating with other devices via a network (e.g., theInternet). Computer 500 also includes one or more output networkinterfaces 516 for communicating with other devices. Computer 500 alsoincludes input/output 524, representing devices which allow for userinteraction with the computer 500 (e.g., display, keyboard, mouse,speakers, buttons, etc.). One skilled in the art will recognize that animplementation of an actual computer will contain other components aswell, and that FIG. 5 is a high level representation of some of thecomponents of such a computer for illustrative purposes. It should alsobe understood by one skilled in the art that the method and devicesdepicted in FIGS. 1 through 4 may be implemented on a device such as isshown in FIG. 5.

The foregoing Detailed Description is to be understood as being in everyrespect illustrative and exemplary, but not restrictive, and the scopeof the invention disclosed herein is not to be determined from theDetailed Description, but rather from the claims as interpretedaccording to the full breadth permitted by the patent laws. It is to beunderstood that the embodiments shown and described herein are onlyillustrative of the principles of the present invention and that variousmodifications may be implemented by those skilled in the art withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the invention. Those skilled inthe art could implement various other feature combinations withoutdeparting from the scope and spirit of the invention.

What is claimed is:
 1. A server device, comprising: a memory to storeexecutable instructions; and a processor coupled to the memory, whereinthe executable instructions, responsive to being executed by theprocessor, facilitate performance of operations comprising: receiving arequest for group membership information, wherein the request isreceived over a network from a network server, wherein the groupmembership information is associated with a calling party and a calledparty, and wherein the request includes identification informationassociated with the calling party and the called party; obtaining, froma social network database, user profile information associated with thecalling party and the called party based on the identificationinformation; determining the group membership information from the userprofile information; and providing the group membership information overthe network to the network server to enable the network server toidentify a common membership group of the calling party and the calledparty and to cause the network server to initiate a telecommunicationsession between a first end user device of the calling party and asecond end user device of the called party responsive to the identifyingof the common membership group, wherein the group membership informationincludes an identifier for the common membership group that is providedto the second end user device of the called party.
 2. The server deviceof claim 1, wherein the identification information comprises phonenumbers without names of the calling party and the called party.
 3. Theserver device of claim 1, wherein the identification informationcomprises names of the calling party and the called party.
 4. The serverdevice of claim 1, wherein the operations further comprise: obtaining aprofile picture of the calling party from the user profile informationassociated with the calling party; and providing the profile pictureover the network to the network server to cause the network server totransmit the profile picture of the calling party to the second end userdevice of the called party.
 5. The server device of claim 1, wherein thetelecommunication session is initiated over an Internet Protocolcommunication network.
 6. The server device of claim 1, wherein theobtaining of the user profile information from the social networkdatabase comprises: adjusting the identification information associatedwith the called party based on a location of the first end user deviceof the calling party to generate adjusted identification information;and providing a query to the social network database based on theadjusted identification information.
 7. The server device of claim 6,wherein the adjusted identification information comprises a phone numberwithout names of the calling party and the called party.
 8. The serverdevice of claim 1, wherein the obtaining of the user profile informationfrom the social network database comprises providing multiple queries tothe social network database based on different versions of theidentification information.
 9. The server device of claim 8, wherein afirst version of the different versions of the identificationinformation is generated by the processor based on a location of thefirst end user device of the calling party.
 10. A method comprising:receiving, by a system comprising a processor, a request for groupmembership information, wherein the request is received over a networkfrom a network server, wherein the group membership information isassociated with a calling party and a called party, and wherein therequest includes identification information associated with the callingparty and the called party; accessing, by the system, user profileinformation associated with the calling party and the called party basedon the identification information; identifying, by the system, a commonmembership group for the called and calling parties based on the userprofile information; and providing, by the system, an identifier for thecommon membership group, wherein the providing of the identifier is overthe network to the network server to cause the network server toinitiate a telecommunication session between a first end user device ofthe calling party and a second end user device of the called party andto cause the network server to provide the identifier for the commonmembership group to the second end user device of the called party. 11.The method of claim 10, wherein the identification information comprisesphone numbers without names of the calling party and the called party.12. The method of claim 10, comprising: obtaining, by the system, aprofile picture of the calling party from the user profile informationassociated with the calling party; and providing, by the system, theprofile picture over the network to the network server to cause thenetwork server to transmit the profile picture of the calling party tothe second end user device of the called party.
 13. The method of claim10, wherein the accessing of the user profile information comprises:adjusting, by the system, the identification information associated withthe called party based on a location of the first end user device of thecalling party to generate adjusted identification information; andproviding, by the system, a query to a social network database based onthe adjusted identification information.
 14. The method of claim 10,wherein the receiving of the request, the accessing of the user profileinformation and the providing of the identifier are performed by theprocessor.
 15. The method of claim 10, wherein the accessing of the userprofile information comprises utilizing multiple queries based ondifferent versions of the identification information.
 16. The method ofclaim 15, wherein a first version of the different versions of theidentification information is generated based on a location of the firstend user device of the calling party.
 17. A first end user device,comprising: a memory to store executable instructions; and a processorcoupled to the memory, wherein the executable instructions responsive toexecution by the processor facilitate performance of operationscomprising: providing a request for a telecommunication session with asecond end user device of a called party; providing identificationinformation for a calling party of the first end user device and for thecalled party, wherein the identification information is provided over anetwork to a server to cause the server to transmit an identifier of acommon social membership group of the calling party and the called partyto the second end user device; and engaging in the telecommunicationsession with the second end user device of the called party responsiveto an acceptance of the identifier by the second end user device. 18.The first end user device of claim 17, wherein the transmitting of theidentifier to the second end user device is via instant messaging. 19.The first end user device of claim 17, wherein the identificationinformation for the called party comprises a phone number without a nameof the called party.
 20. The first end user device of claim 17, whereinthe transmitting of the identifier to the second end user device is viaCallerID.